


this and that of you

by annundriel



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:04:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annundriel/pseuds/annundriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They learn each other this way; each scar a story, each kiss a trade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this and that of you

**Author's Note:**

> An expansion of [this post](http://annundriel.tumblr.com/post/106963455622/write-the-kisses-write-all-the-kisses-write-the) on my tumblr.
> 
> Title from a poem by e.e. cummings.

Sooner rather than later, they fall into a pattern, something—amazingly—resembling a Relationship, capital-R. It's strange; he isn't used to it. He wasn't even expecting it. A one-off, he figured. Maybe two. Okay, three, but that's it, this isn't—

Who was he kidding? Certainly not the Bull. Probably only himself. When they'd first met in the Redcliffe chantry, he had noticed the Bull--hard not to--but it had been nothing more than that, nothing more than _ah, suspicious Qunari, of course_. And then the castle and Alexius and the future, their companions—the Bull and Blackwall—infected by the red lyrium. Their admirable determination to get revenge, their utter loyalty to the Inquisitor. He'd admire the Bull, certainly. Admired all of them, and known in that future, with those people, that he had chosen rightly.

And somehow—somehow—they'd gotten here, here in Dorian's quarters with the door shut tight and a fire in the grate, sun streaming through the window. The two of them, mid-afternoon, with nowhere to be and time to themselves. They've both come already, and the Bull turns toward him with open hands, legs splayed. He leans on one elbow and looks down at Dorian, mouth curving upward into what might be a smirk if it didn't look so fond. In his chest, Dorian's heart thuds.

Resolutely, Dorian ignores it. He grins up at the Bull, and stretches his legs, pushing the sheets farther down the bed. He aches in the most delightful way and tells the Bull as much, which makes the Bull chuckle, a great rolling sound that makes Dorian's skin tingle.  
"Good, kadan," the Bull says, one hand reaching for him, fingers tracing shapes across Dorian's chest. Dorian's not sure if they're nonsense or not, if there's greater meaning to them than the Bull's own desire to touch. He doesn't mind it. He likes it. Has to keep himself from pushing up into it. "Good. That's the point."

Dorian laughs and runs his fingers through his hair. "Kadan," he says. "You've called me that before, I think, though usually when I'm not...quite so lucid. It's Qunlat, yes?"

The Bull nods, continues tracing nonsense into Dorian's skin.

"And?"

"And?" the Bull repeats.

"Now you're being deliberately obtuse," Dorian says, reaching for the Bull's wrist, wrapping his fingers around it as best he can. "And what does it mean?"

The Bull smiles at him, soft and—this time obviously—fond. "You're the scholar. Why don't you find out?"

Dorian squints at him, pushing up onto one elbow. "It's not an insult, is it? You're not insulting me, are you?"

Wrist twisting out of Dorian's grasp, the Bull laughs, presses his palm to Dorian's cheek. Leans in. "Kadan," he says, voice pitched-low, "if that's what you think, you're not as smart as you look."

"You think I look smarmmmph."

Later, after they've both eaten and the Bull has left him to train with the Chargers, Dorian dresses and heads to the library, tries not to whistle and then sees Mother Giselle and whistles anyway, why not.

He looks it up in one of his books. _Kadan_ , he reads. _My heart_.

When the Bull knocks on his door later, Dorian reaches for him. Pulls him down. Kisses him soundly. Calls him _kadan_.

The grin that spreads across the Bull's face is stunning.

*

The Bull's skin is warm and scarred beneath Dorian's palms, his lips. He traverses the length and breadth of his body, asking about each one. Stopping to listen as the Bull tells him. They learn each other this way; each scar a story, each kiss a trade. The Bull's life takes shape in these quiet moments between them, rough flesh beneath Dorian's lips, the Bull's voice rumbling through him, his hand reaching for Dorian to touch, just to touch. And Dorian begins to understand, begins to see what the Bull meant when he tried to suggest they were similar. He'd been a little horrified at the thought then. Now, though...

He likes the man he's becoming.

Pushing himself onto his knees, he moves forward on the bed, straddles the Bull's thighs. Leans in and kisses him, deep. _Amatus_.

The Bull's hands on his hips are big and hot and steady, and when Dorian pulls away, they keep him near.

"And this," Dorian says, fingers tracing over the scars where Bull's eye would be. "You've told me about this. In the tavern. With Krem."

The Bull nods. "Yup. Wasn't going to let some assholes—”

"You're a good man, Bull," he says, and it feels—suddenly—very important. "You're—”

The Bull flips them before he can finish, pressing him to the sheets.

"You're an asshole," Dorian amends. "Never mind what I said before, you're an absolute brute."

Filling the room is the sound of the Bull's laughter and Dorian's, the light from the fire and moon.

*

It's not always fun and games with the Inquisition. Sometimes it's terror and running for their lives. Sometimes it's _bloody dragons_ and the Bull _begging to fight them_ and what the—how he ever fell in with him, Dorian will never know. (And though he won’t admit it out loud in mixed company, Dorian wouldn’t have it any other way. Except for the dragons. He will never be happy about the dragons. And the swamps. What is with these southerners and their _standing water_ anyway?)

Sometimes, though, it's just the wrong place at the wrong time. A surprise attack, birds gone too quiet, the snap of a stick just to the left. Too many enemies and too few allies.

Dorian isn’t even sure what happened, not really. All he knows for certain is that the Bull’s hands on him are frantic, after. He tastes blood, metallic on his tongue, and isn’t sure if it’s his own or the Bull’s. Knows only that he's horizontal when he had been vertical, that the world had twisted and turned and _burned_ —

He holds on tight to the Bull, kisses him back, reassures himself that they’re both fine as the Bull kneels over him, pulling him from the grass where he's fallen. His touch is gentle, his body oriented to Dorian's, towering over him.

“My hero,” Dorian says, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. The Bull’s mouth twists into something painful, and Dorian would like to take the words back, but he can’t. They hover in the air between them, like the afterimage of a spell. "I'm fine, really. I'm fine," he says instead, one hand held out to the Bull.

The Bull nods, reaching out to squeeze Dorian’s hand once before stepping away to pick up his ax and refit it to his back. His eye remains on Dorian, his mouth a worried twist.

It's not even the worst surprise attack that's happened to them, but the Bull watches him for the next two hours. He keeps a step behind Dorian and an eye on him and when Dorian stumbles—barely—as they make their way up a cliff— _It's a hill, Dorian, stop complaining_ , the Inquisitor says—the Bull's hand is there to catch him, steady him.

It’s only when they set up camp that evening, the light slanting golden through the trees of the Graves, that the Bull disappears from his side. It shouldn’t be easy to misplace a Qunari, but Dorian seems to have done it. He imagines the Bull’s years of training probably help. He finds him eventually, though, at the edge of camp, his legs dangling over the edge of a rocky outcrop, the muscles of his broad shoulders bunched between his shoulder blades as he leans back on his hands.

“Mind if I join you?” Dorian asks, seating himself when the Bull looks back over his shoulder and nods. Even with the space between them, Dorian is hyperaware of the Bull’s body, the heat coming off of it. The sheer size of it. He’d woken that morning tucked against that side, will fall asleep later this night in the same attitude. He’s pressed his lips to each visible scar—as well as the invisible—and felt the Bull’s wide hands on every inch of his own body.

“I can’t ask you not to let that happen again.” The Bull’s voice interrupts his thoughts, a low rumble in the dying light. He doesn’t look at Dorian. “The lives we lead, injury is a way of life. I know I can’t ask you not to—”

“You’re one to talk,” Dorian says. “Chasing dragons and giants and wyverns and Maker knows what else. I was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I know.” The Bull sighs, finally turning to look at him. Dorian’s gotten used to reading him, but he can’t read him now. Isn’t sure if that’s because the Bull doesn’t want him to or because of the lighting. “Like I was saying, the lives we lead…it’s inevitable. Maybe we’re not built for this.”

In his chest, something painful happens. Dorian feels as though he’s been struck by lightning, as though a spell has gone awry, reflected back on him and—

“But I would like to be.”

Dorian stares at him. He stares at the familiar, scarred lines of his face, the hopeful curve of his mouth. He stares, and his heart beats, and he feels a bit faint, which could be because of the look he now recognizes in the Bull’s eye or because he hasn’t eaten for quite some time and suffered a blow to the head when he fell. He stares, and then he laughs, more breath than anything, and looks away, out into the abyss their feet dangle into.

He knocks the Bull’s knee with his own.

“As would I.”

They stay there talking about danger and acceptable risks until the Inquisitor comes looking for them with news that meal time is now and if they don’t hurry, they’ll miss it, and in the Bull’s tent—to be honest, _their_ tent—after they’ve eaten and laughed and the Bull has exchanged bawdy tales with Scout Harding, the Bull helps him undress. Eases sore muscles from the confines of Dorian’s tunic, his trousers. He rubs his big hands together to generate heat before pressing them to Dorian’s skin, and Dorian groans and sighs. Arches into him.

“Amatus,” he says. “My hero.”

*

He's never kissed anyone goodbye before, isn't sure what to expect. He knows he'll see the Bull again, soon enough. He always does. But this time he's off with the Chargers, farther than usual, and Dorian's in Skyhold. Which is the way Dorian prefers it, mostly; he enjoys the company, but his time between leaving his home and eventually settling with the Inquisition? Well. He doesn't think on it fondly. As adept as he's become in the wilderness, it is not his natural habitat. Plus, they're both busy, and while the Bull had offered him a place on this particular venture— _Dalish? Nah, she still says we need a mage_ —they'd both known Dorian would decline. They're off to Kirkwall, afterall, and Dorian's been there. It's a shithole, and Dorian does not handle water well.

They spend the night before the Chargers are set to leave together, tucked away in Dorian's rooms with food and cocoa. The Bull takes him apart, puts him back together. Promises to come back and do the same, over and over and—

Dorian kisses him quiet. Tells him _shut up_ and means _you better_ as he rolls on top of the Bull, doing his best to give him incentive to return. He doesn't want him to leave, but understands how these things are.

They say goodbye—their real goodbye—in private the next morning, the Bull's big hands on his waist, his cheek. He's gentle in a way Dorian knows most people don't associate with him, but Dorian has come to. He knows the Bull now, knows the ins and outs of him. They kiss goodbye and it feels like falling, the ground gone from beneath Dorian's feet, his heart in his throat.

Outside, the Bull is loud, rallying the troops, shouting his goodbyes. He knocks Cullen on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him, and Dorian watches as he leans down, his great head between Cullen's and the Inquisitor's, and says something that makes them both glance at Dorian. He can guess what was said, and he expects he'll be seeing Cullen later that day for a game of chess, the Inquisitor that evening for some magical sparring.

He appreciates the thought, and when the Bull turns to blow him a kiss, Dorian rolls his eyes but blows one back anyway.

*

The Bull writes to him. It surprises Dorian at first, and then he isn't sure why. Of course the Bull writes. Of course.

The first letter he receives smells of salt and rain, the Storm Coast leaked into its pages. It doesn't say much— _an easy trip, no one to maim (sadly), Dalish still insists her staff is a bow and really, Dorian, can't you just...talk to her_ —but Dorian can hear the Bull's voice in his head in every line, every word. Remembers the feel of his lips on Dorian's temple as he pressed a kiss there, called him _kadan_.

He tucks the letter into the top drawer of the nightstand he appropriated for his rooms and sits at his desk to write back. Tells the Bull he's sure Cullen is either cheating at chess or can read minds ( _never mind his skills at strategizing_ ), that he thinks Scout Harding may be pining for someone ( _one of the Chargers, I'm almost positive_ ), that Josephine is itching to plan a wedding, but no one has popped the question yet. He doesn't tell the Bull he misses him, doesn't scribble words of longing into the parchment. The Bull will know anyway; he's clever like that.

He hesitates, at first, putting _amatus_ to paper. Wonders if the Bull is good enough to see the hesitation in the scratch of his quill, the saturation of the ink.

His bravery is rewarded, however, in the next letter, _kadan_ written on the parchment like a brand. Dorian runs his thumb over it and allows himself to wish, ardently, for the Bull’s return.

The letters come and go, smelling of smoke and ale, of metal and dirt. They smell of the Bull, if Dorian closes his eyes and breathes deeply enough. He doesn't carry them around with him, not only because he's no blushing adolescent, but also because he wants to preserve that smell, to press his face, his lips, close and remember now that it's gone from his sheets.

 _Next time, you’re coming with me_ , the Bull writes. _Next time, we’re going to Tevinter_.

 _Yes_ , Dorian thinks, fighting the smile at the corners of his mouth though no one is there to see it. _Yes, we’ll change the world_.

Each letter he reads, then places in the drawer by his bed. When there are lulls in their arrival, he rereads them, tells himself not to worry. If they didn't die dealing with Corypheus—or those _bloody dragons_ —there's nothing that can hurt Bull now.

He tells himself this, then goes to find Varric for a game of cards.

*

The hand on his shoulder almost makes Dorian scream, he startles so bad, but then he recognizes the width of it, the breadth. The warmth sinking through his clothing. He swears in Tevene and turns to hit the Bull on his uncovered shoulder. Feels relief when he doesn't immediately see any fresh scars, and—for once—doesn't protest when the Bull lifts him, feet swinging, to kiss him hello.


End file.
